MIAMI GARDENS \u2014 Dolphins general manager Chris Grier has been fired. Yes, the official wording is that the Dolphins and Grier mutually agreed to part ways. But Grier, who had a 54-55 (.495) record with the Dolphins, 54-57 (.487) if you include the two playoff losses, was essentially fired.<\/p>\n
The dismantling of a failed Miami Dolphins era has begun, and the\u00a02026 rebuild, something we all saw as inevitable, is underway.<\/p>\n
About two months ago I wrote that Dolphins owner Steve Ross must show fans he gives a damn and that he\u2019s listening to their concerns. Ross, whose team isn\u2019t raising season ticket prices for 2026, did that by parting ways with Grier.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll\u00a0recall the Grier era began in January 2016 with Grier declaring, \u201cThe talk of dysfunction within this organization is over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dysfunction ended the Grier era.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll\u00a0admit that I\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0expect Grier\u2019s departure to occur during the season. General managers rarely get fired midseason. The New York Jets did it last year with general manager Joe Douglas, firing him on Nov. 24, roughly six weeks after they fired coach Robert Saleh. You never want to follow a trend established by the Jets, but the Dolphins made the right choice this time.<\/p>\n
Ross acknowledged in a statement that change was necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have always been and remain committed to building a winning team that consistently competes for championships,\u201d Ross said in the statement. \u201cI am incredibly proud of our leadership as an NFL organization and our continued commitment to the community, but our performance on the field and our team-building process have not been good enough. There are no excuses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coach Mike McDaniel, who has a 30-30 regular season record, is still employed and will likely remain so until season\u2019s end, according to reports.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear why McDaniel will remain.<\/p>\n
This entire Grier-McDaniel era has been a failure.<\/p>\n
Start with the contract extension awarded to quarterback Tua Tagovailoa following the 2023 season and continue through the inability to find a way to win a playoff game during the McDaniel era, despite amassing a good amount of talent. But also don\u2019t forget the inability to build a quality offensive line or find a decent backup quarterback.<\/p>\n
Grier, who took over full operational duties in 2019 after being put in charge of the draft in 2016, never fully grasped how to handle the talent he worked so hard to amass along with McDaniel.<\/p>\n
Grier and McDaniel thought speed and player empowerment was the way to build a winning program. They\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0get the message after the 2022 season that they needed to change or tweak things, that, because this is tackle football and not 7-on-7, they needed more physicality and less speed.<\/p>\n
They also didn\u2019t get the message after the overhyped 2023 season \u2014 1-6 vs. playoff teams, being outscored by an average of 32-16 \u2014 that what they were doing wasn\u2019t working effectively.<\/p>\n
This is a team that, in 2023 and 2024, was 11-0 when speedy wide receiver Tyreek Hill had 100 or more yards receiving, and 7-17 (.292) when he had 99 yards or fewer. That screams that significant changes must be made. But in the face of overwhelming evidence, they never made the necessary changes.<\/p>\n
This is why I endorsed getting out the broom and sweeping Grier, McDaniel and quarterback Tua Tagovailoa out at season\u2019s end.<\/p>\n
They wasted an opportunity.<\/p>\n
I heartily endorsed the \u201cwin now\u201d strategy of adding veterans such as Hill, left tackle Terron Armstead, outside linebacker Bradley Chubb, cornerback Jalen Ramsey and defensive tackle Calais Campbell. It was smart. It was just done without much forethought. Grier and McDaniel thought they could simply outspeed all of their competitors.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear what happens now for the Dolphins at general manager between a comprehensive search or keeping interim general manager Champ Kelly for the fulltime GM job.<\/p>\n
But give Ross some credit for showing awareness, doing the right thing, and somewhat trying to soothe his fan base, which has stopped showing up to games in big numbers and has flown banners asking Ross to fire Grier and McDaniel.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll see if Ross can keep the momentum going.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI GARDENS \u2014 Dolphins general manager Chris Grier has been fired. Yes, the official wording is that the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[114,123,1763,125,124,119,110],"class_list":{"0":"post-28378","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-latest-headlines","9":"tag-miami","10":"tag-miami-dolphins","11":"tag-miami-headlines","12":"tag-miami-news","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}